Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 DOI 10.1007/s11256-013-0246-5 Recasting Border Crossing Politics and Pedagogies to Combat Educational Inequity: Experiences, Identities, and Perceptions of Latino/a Immigrant Youth Camille M. Wilson • Lucila D. Ek Ty-Ron M. O. Douglas • Published online: 30 May 2013  Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract Educational borderlands are the physical and/or conceptual landscapes where one must negotiate notions of cultural difference as she or he lives and learns—landscapes that envelop an array of pedagogical and cultural spaces, yet are typically guarded by exclusionary tactics. In this article, we examine how US immigrant youth navigate three educational borderlands: the geopolitical, institutional, and home community. We also discuss how educators’ biased ideologies and actions towards these youth solidify borders and increase inequity. Data from studies of California and North Carolina school communities allow us to extend border crossing theories and address how many immigrant youth confront and resist inequities, negotiate their cultural identities, and enact agency. While emphasizing that borderlands are sites of risk and transformation, we also suggest how educators can draw upon their relative power and privilege to cross borders too, advocate for immigrant youth, and ultimately improve education. Keywords Immigrants
Diversity
Border crossing Camille M. Wilson previously published under the name Camille Wilson Cooper, and she authored the works referenced under Cooper, C.W. in this article’s bibliography. C. M. Wilson (&) Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Program, Wayne State University, 5425 Gullen Mall, Detroit, MI 48202, USA e-mail: camille.wilson@wayne.edu L. D. Ek Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies, The University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA e-mail: Lucila.Ek@utsa.edu T.-R. M. O. Douglas Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, University of Missouri-Columbia, 202 Hill Hall, Columbia, MO 65211, USA e-mail: Douglastyr@missouri.edu 123 2 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 Introduction Throughout history, the most dangerous battles for power, territory, and cultural reign have involved highly contested spaces that are demarcated by human-set borders. In military wars, such borders are protected by soldiers and/or weapons. Some weapons are masked like landmines and others are more visible like the wires lined with explosive links that, if tripped, will detonate and prevent someone from crossing into a forbidden space. At the same time, the detonation warns others to stay away. Currently in the US, a centuries-old cultural war persists with factions— particularly different socioeconomic and cultural groups—fighting over public educational access. Such factions know that educational attainment is the primary tool to gain knowledge, socioeconomic mobility, self-actualization, and power in a society where many dominant white power holders purport the nation to be democratic and meritocratic, yet racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities continually face structural barriers and exclusion (Bonilla-Silva 2006; Giroux 2005; Leonardo and Porter 2010; Tejeda 2000; Villenas 2002). In public education, students of color and immigrant youth find they have to carefully cross in and out of bordered spaces or borderlands. These include some spaces in which they have been disempowered and segregated; others in which they are affirmed, and still others where they seek mobility yet are oppressed or unwelcomed. Weapons in this context include legislation, curriculum, and educational practices designed to physically, intellectually, and socially restrain students—weapons that make it easier for educators to avoid engaging diversity or rectifying inequities. From policies adopted in Arizona and Alabama requiring educators to report students’ citizenship status to other government authorities (Khadaroo 2011), to laws against promoting ‘‘racial resentment’’ or ‘‘ethnic solidarity’’ in schools (Smith 2011), to hostile school climates where educators resist serving culturally diverse students, borders and boundaries abound. Much must be learned about how youth seek agency by educational border crossing and how educators can facilitate rather than block their efforts. There is also a moral imperative for educators to cross borders as well, but in a distinct way through which they exit comfortable and privileged zones to better understand, engage, and justly serve diverse students. To facilitate learning about these issues, we reflect on data from two qualitative studies in this article. One study was conducted in California, a state where immigrant students of color have long navigated bordered spaces, and one in North Carolina, a state where the significant presence of immigrants of color, particularly Latinas/os, is relatively recent. Reflecting on data and insights from both studies allow us to emphasize student and educator voices and compare and contrast important issues related to student identity and agency. Very importantly, addressing both studies also allows us to consider essential information related to how borders are both constructed and transversed in what some scholars and demographers refer to as ‘‘traditional’’ and ‘‘emerging gateway’’ states where immigrants reside (Anrig and Wang 2006). Together, the studies offer a fuller picture of power dynamics that help us contribute to educational border crossing theory. 123 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 3 We specifically explore cultural and sociopolitical contexts affecting Latino/a immigrant youth to consider how they navigate educational borderlands. Following Portes and Rumbaut (2005), we use ‘‘immigrants’’ to refer to both immigrants born in another country who came to the US as adults (first generation) and their US born children (second generation). Second-generation Latino/a youth are usually bilingual in Spanish and English and may have close ties to their parents’ home countries. In addition, we define educational borderlands as the physical and/or conceptual landscapes where one must negotiate notions of cultural difference as she or he lives and learns—landscapes that envelop a wide array of pedagogical and cultural spaces for youth. Three educational borderlands are replete with political fissures, cultural gaps, and sometimes ideological landmines that immigrant youth must navigate around. These borderlands include: the geopolitical—the distinct racial and cultural politics of the geographic region in which youth live (Gray and Sloan 1999; Hafeznia 2006; Osterud 1988); the institutional—particularly school systems and educators’ politics, policies, and practices (Larson and Ovando 2001; Riehl 2000); and, the home community—the family and faith-based settings that help shape youth’s cultural and moral development (Cooper et al. 2010; Ek 2008, 2009; Heath 1996). We consider how these three spaces dynamically intersect to make border crossing risky, yet potentially transformational for students and educators. Border Theories and the Politics of Race, Space, and Identity Aside from the geographic borders that have long signified the division of physical territories, a wide range of scholars from various disciplines, including but not limited to feminist, critical race, postcolonial, postmodern, and cultural studies (Anzaldúa 2007; Cline et al. 2005; Collins 2000; de la Luz Reyes & Garza 2005; Giroux 2005; Lopez et al. 2006; Phelan et al. 2003) evoke the idea that epistemological, social, and cultural borders divide various socioeconomic and cultural groups. Chicana feminist Gloria Anzaldúa’s (2007) seminal theorizing also points out how border crossing can occur internally as one experiences ‘‘psychic restlessness’’ as she or he struggles to reconcile their various, seemingly conflicting identities (p. 377). Scholars like de la Luz Reyes and Garza (2005) address border pedagogies and Lopez et al. (2006) discuss border leadership, both involving practices whereby dominant and marginalized groups learn with and from each other through dialogue, cross-cultural immersion, storytelling, and critical reflection to dismantle inequitable barriers. Critical theorist Giroux (2005) further asserts that language in the form of expressing voices of resistance is a key tool for border crossing and calls for educators to develop the ‘‘… pedagogical conditions in which students become border crossers in order to understand otherness in its own terms’’ (Giroux 2005, p. 20). Others like Phelan et al. (2003) draw upon psychological models to discuss how family, peer, and school influences affect how youth navigate border spaces. Across the literature, the notions of border and border crossing recognize that many marginal spaces are occupied by groups who are viewed as different from dominant groups in power (Cline et al. 2005; Giroux 2005; West 1999). Borders are 123 4 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 often ideologically and socially constructed spaces that separate groups through the use of language and power and the reifying of dominant histories or ‘‘master narratives’’ (Giroux 2005; Cline et al. 2005). Tejeda (2000) further reminds us that space often has material, cognitive, social, and epistemological characteristics that are influenced by White supremacist discourses that are ‘‘normalized through legal, political, and social practices,…’’ (p. 144). These dynamics in turn oppress and marginalize non-White racial and ethnic groups. Divisiveness in schooling spaces is reinforced through curriculum, instruction, and educational policies (Garza 2007; Giroux 2005; Phelan et al. 2003). In addition, Tejeda (2000) argues that within spaces where White people are dominant, White supremacist discourses can portray immigrants ‘‘as alien and unnatural to those spaces’’ and therefore ‘‘as undeserving and unentitled’’ (p. 144). Hence, perceptions of ethnic and nationality differences typically become subsumed in broader racial politics and discourses that address the ideologies, actions, and experiences of white Americans and people of color who are collectively positioned and treated as ‘‘racial’’ others. Latino/a immigrants (and other people of color) are then subjected to the ‘‘race-thinking’’ that permeates society and ‘‘social reality’’ (Omi and Winant 1993, p. 5). They can also become objectified as unwanted ‘‘brown bodies’’ (Cruz 2006). This race-thinking, and the ‘‘racialization’’ of ethnic others, are important geopolitical contexts that deeply influence how people are identified, how borders are drawn to include or exclude, and how borders are navigated. Racial-ethnic politics in the US therefore are central to immigrant youth’s border crossing efforts and their efforts to seek agency. The construction and maintenance of borders are grounded in people’s conceptions of and responses to identity. Youth Identity and Agency in Border Spaces Identity construction is a complex and contested process that involves an amalgamation of difference across and within a continuum of races, ethnicities, genders, social classes, sexual orientations, religions, (dis)abilities, languages, political allegiances, and other culturally and historically contextualized markers (Gresson III 2008; Johnson 2006; Omi and Winant 1993; Villaverde 2008; West 1999). Indeed, Leonardo (2000) explains, ‘‘identity is only achieved in the context of difference;’’ thus, identity is relational and one typically constructs themselves as ‘‘I’’ and those different from them as the ‘‘other’’ (p. 113). Various identity dimensions and markers can function distinctly from, in concert, or in conflict with each other, thereby embodying conceptual borders that are encroached, pushed, redefined, and reestablished within individuals, communities, institutions, and in society at large (Hall 1993; Johnson 2006; Omi and Winant 1993). The extent to which identity markers and the borders they designate are affirming or oppressive usually rests on if the differences of others are perceived as positive, neutral, negative, or threatening. Immigrant Latinas/os live in the intersections of ethnicity, race, class, language, gender and other social identities. One’s ability to negotiate border spaces also depends on whether identity is conceived of as fixed or fluid. Fluidity can allow one to cross borders to learn, grow, 123 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 5 and relate well to others, while fixed conceptions of identity prompt one to essentialize difference and thus conceptualize others in oversimplistic and stereotypical ways (Cooper 2009; Villaverde 2008). This stereotyping becomes an ‘‘othering’’ process that typically reflects ‘‘xenophobic racisms’’ when it targets people of color; and, it engages fear-based racial and ethnic politics that are commonly linked to militaristic imagery and tactics that portray immigrants as dangerous invaders (Leonardo and Porter 2010; Murrillo 2002; Omi and Winant 1993; Hall 1993; Tejeda 2000; Villenas 2002, p. 17) Both fluid and static identities come with peril. For instance, with epistemological awakening and the subsequent identity shifts that occur, marginalized people of color become better poised to critique and resist oppressive ideas, structures, and norms. These psychic, social, and even physical shifts align with what Leonardo and Porter (2010) call ‘‘a humanizing form of violence,’’ meaning ‘‘a pedagogy and politics of disruption that shifts the regime of knowledge about what is ultimately possible as well as desirable as a racial arrangement’’ (p. 140). They and other postmodern theorists equate such shifts to one decolonizing her/his thinking (Hickling-Hudson 1998; Said 1994). Leonardo and Porter (2010) discuss these ideas in the context of anti-racist pedagogies, yet these ideas relate to border crossing as well. With decolonizing one’s mind comes seeking agency and that movement means oppressed peoples, such as Latino/a immigrant youth in the US, can advance themselves. Still, youth take risks to cross in and out of privileged sociopolitical spaces like high quality public schools, potentially being culturally, politically, and physically assaulted or blocked as they attempt to gain entry. Powerful institutions like schools can assign essentialized identities—such as pegging Latino/a students in the US as ‘‘illegal’’ and/or underachievers—which have consequences for instruction and learning. However, immigrant youth enact their agency to construct their own identities by resisting dominant group’s efforts to define, assimilate, and/or negate them (Ek 2009), making them agentic bordercrossers. Scholars stress how youth’s self-identification process can be ‘‘hard-won’’ as they form or ‘‘improvise’’ their identities, which enable them to create ‘‘new activities, new worlds, and new ways of being’’ (Holland et al. 1998, p. 4, 5). This improvisation occurs in educational borderlands, particularly in schools where Latino/a youth’s personal identities—largely shaped by their home community— often conflict with a school’s institutional identity. Latino/a immigrant youth’s language is a key tool for their identity and agency processes. Studies of US Latino/a language socialization, informed by anthropolitical linguistics, contribute to our understandings of youth identity construction through language. Particularly, ‘‘research that sees through the language smokescreen that obscures ideological, structural, and political impediments to equity’’ (Zentella 1997, 2005, p. 9), such as pinpointing students’ linguistic difference as a racial or intellectual ‘‘barrier.’’ For Latino/a immigrants in the US, issues of language and identity are never power neutral given historical and current language and immigration attitudes that embed racial-ethnic politics. Historically, the thrust of the education of immigrants 123 6 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 in the US has been that of ‘‘Americanizing’’ them to the dominant culture, i.e. White, upperclass, English-speaking culture (Nieto and Bode 2004). Immigrants use of their native language is often a key signifier of cultural difference that can be threatening or uncomfortable to English-speaking educators and peers (Urciouli 1996), motivating them to establish or fortify existing borders that segregate English language learning, immigrant youth (Ek 2008) or push them to assimilate in order to gain educational access. Many immigrant youth resist Americanization and instead strive mightily to maintain their heritage and their cultural and linguistic identities, using their identities as a border crossing resource. The Role of Educators While border crossing can be liberating for the oppressed, it is threatening to oppressors who perceive immigrant youth as non-entitled ‘‘aliens’’ destined to undermine dominant values, practices, policies, and communities (Tejeda 2000; Villenas 2002). Border crossers interrogate dominant cultural narratives, scripts, and texts that typically embed Eurocentric norms, historic accounts, and/or social analyses that exclude or pathologize cultural difference (Anzaldúa 2007; Collins 2000; Giroux 2005, p. 13; Lopez et al. 2006). As marginalized groups resist the status quo, dominant groups who fear sharing power, resources and upward pathways resist change. When applied to educators who wish to ensure versus thwart social justice in schools, border crossing involves better identifying, understanding, and confronting educational inequities and then resisting oppressive power dynamics. It also means negotiating social boundaries in sensitive, conscientious, critical, and culturally responsive ways that foster new collaborations and inclusive alliances with students, educators, family, and staff members of diverse backgrounds (Cooper 2009; Giroux 2005; Lopez et al. 2006). Crossing pedagogical, sociocultural, and political borders to better serve students and their families is necessary cultural work that is antiracist and ‘‘links notions of schooling and the broader category of education to a more substantive struggle for a radical democratic society’’ (Cooper 2009; Giroux 2005, p. 20; West 1999). We acknowledge that border crossing also poses some risks for educators. It involves them resisting some of the authorities that employ them and strategically circumventing some of the policies and practices for which they can be professionally rewarded. Still, educators are privileged because they are typically degreed, middle class professionals who are often well versed in the US culture of power—a culture they can inevitably reproduce. When compared to immigrant youth, educators operate in educational spaces with much more ease and choice-making ability. Educators’ positionality enables them to disarm the educational weapons of exclusion that harm youth and bravely work through the tensions and complexities that come with diversity and change. Below, we consider what such dynamics and choice making can be like for youth who cross borders and seek agency within educational borderlands. 123 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 7 Crossing Educational Borderlands Geopolitical, institutional, and home community borderlands are three prominent and complex terrains that must be understood and crossed by both youth and educators. Doing so can help ensure students’ educational success. Geopolitical Borderlands Osterud (1988) explains that ‘‘geopolitics traditionally indicate the links and causal relationships between political power and geographic space,’’ (p. 192). Land (and seas) occupied by those who are powerful, resourceful, and often domineering, is more highly regarded and controlled than physical spaces occupied by those lacking power and socioeconomic resources. Though typical understandings and definitions of geopolitics often focus on geographical, governmental and military power, geopolitics is always about people; specifically, geopolitics is an umbrella term that encapsulates collective human forces and structures that are used to manipulate and maneuver around/through complex relationships between various countries, inter/intra-cultural associations, and groups of people. Indeed, contemporary definitions of geopolitics have become more expansive in terms of the way the definitions encompass sociological power relations and multidisciplinary breadth (Gray and Sloan 1999; Hafeznia 2006). Geopolitical dynamics play out within and across distinct personal and collective identities. In fact, these identities are the canvases on which geopolitical inscriptions are etched. Youth bring their identities to bear within geopolitical, institutional, and communal borderlands, and those spaces also have identities that dominant members have largely constructed and wish to maintain. Hence, the arrival of those deemed as ‘‘new,’’ different, and/or deviant into those spaces is unwelcomed and perceived as a threat thereby creating inhospitable and exclusionary dynamics that non-dominant groups, such as immigrant youth, must face even in the public institutions charged with serving them (Hall 1993; Ek 2008; Villenas 2002). These dynamics occur in schools and communities throughout the US, as will be illustrated later in data from our California and North Carolina studies. Institutional Borderlands Institutions, specifically schools, have borderlands that range from a physical classroom, cafeteria or playground, to conceptual spaces that envelop educators’ knowledge bases and their beliefs about students’ intellectual abilities, behaviors, and values (Cline et al. 2005; de la Luz Reyes & Garza 2005; Giroux 2005; Phelan et al. 2003). The construction of a school’s institutional borderlands is influenced by its identity and what Evans (2007) says is the ‘‘sensemaking’’ of teachers, leaders, and students and how they collectively view their school’s reputation as it is linked to achievement, race, and socioeconomic status. Research regarding the demographic change that many schools are experiencing partly due to the increased enrollment of immigrant youth, points out how these students’ growing presence sparks confusion, discomfort, and sometimes resentment 123 8 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 among educators who are not used to serving such populations (Cooper 2009; Evans 2007; Larson and Ovando 2001; Ek 2008). These reactions then create a backlash because some educators and other school community members fear that increased diversity will result in their loss of power, resources and stability (Cooper 2009; Evans 2007; Larson and Ovando 2001; McClain 2006). Such dynamics are not exclusive to Latino/a or immigrant youth contexts, but are historically evident in predominantly white spaces that experience an influx of African Americans and other students of color as well (Evans 2007; Larson and Ovando 2001). Home Community Borderlands The exclusivity and xenophobic forces that pervade greater geopolitical and institutional borderlands usually clash with the home communities of immigrant youth, particularly their families, neighborhoods, and the faith-based centers they may attend. Such communal spaces are typically inclusive and affirming of youth’s social, cultural, and spiritual identities (Douglas and Peck 2013). Within home communities and families, while not always ideal, youth are often perceived as possessing talents, values, beliefs, and skills that enrich and reflect those around them (Gonzalez et al. 2005; Yosso 2005). Research across several decades, however, has documented how the home community life of racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students often differs from the structure, culture and power of schools thereby creating tremendous discontinuity that challenges students and their families (Cooper et al. 2010; De Gaetano 2007; Delgado-Gaitan 2001; Heath 1996; Lawrence-Lightfoot 1978; Lopez et al. 2001; Villenas 2002).1 This discontinuity pertains to issues such as: differences in how diverse families participate in their children’s education and display care (Cooper et al. 2010; De Gaetano 2007); the types of knowledge and learning expressed and valued (Nieto and Bode 2004); the use of language (Heath 1996; Valdés 1996; Zentella 2005); and in how adults strive to shape youth’s moral development (Baquedano-Lopez 1997; Ek 2008, 2009; González 2001). These ideological, behavioral, and sociocultural gaps result in the erection of more borders that can be difficult to cross, and at worse ‘‘impenetrable’’ depending on the ability of immigrant families, educators, and communities to coalesce (Phelan et al. 2003). Learning from Two Border Studies of Immigrant Youth and Change Two of our studies in the US heavily relate to borderland theorizing, including: an ethnographic study of immigrant youth socialization in the State of California and a case study of schools experiencing rapid demographic change in the State of North Carolina. We overview the studies below and then share data to highlight aspects of 1 Many researchers cited in this section do not explicitly identify themselves as border theorists, but we have drawn upon their work because they address the interconnections of social mobility, identity, and equity in a way that aligns with border theories. 123 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 9 geopolitical, institutional, and home community borderlands that are salient to youth and the educators who serve them. For the California study, the second author conducted a multi-phase ethnography of the language and literacy socialization of 10 immigrant Central American and Mexican youth in church, home, and school contexts. Data gathering at La Iglesia, the Latino/a Pentecostal church of the youth, first took place from 2000 to 2002.2 During the study, the second author observed children in the church’s Sunday youth class and the adult service. Visits were also made to the youth’s homes. In addition to participant-observations, video and audio-recording were used whenever possible to capture linguistic communication in interaction. Case studies of four of the youth, which involved participant observations and structured and unstructured interviews, were then conducted in their high schools from 2002 to 2004. Church and home visits also continued during this time, and the study concluded in 2006 with followup interviews. The study’s data were analyzed throughout the data collection process. The second author read through all of the fieldnotes several times, coding to identify salient themes, patterns, and relationships. Summaries and logs of the video recordings were also typed up and audio recordings were transcribed and coded. For the North Carolina study, the first author conducted a comparative case study of two North Carolina elementary schools that have experienced rapid demographic change due largely to their increased enrollment of Latino/a immigrant youth. The schools served approximately 400 and 600 students respectively. This research examined how educators and culturally diverse families perceive their educational needs, roles, and relationships given their social and cultural contexts. Both Apple and Violet Elementary schools are in industrial, working class, and politically conservative cities. They each shifted from being predominantly white in the late 1990s to serving a majority of students of color, with one-third of Apple Elementary students being Latino/a and half of Violet Elementary School’s population being Latino/a. In both schools, the vast majority of Latino/a students were immigrants. Thirty-six semi-structured interviews, including 22 with educators and staff and 14 with parents were conducted from 2005 to 2006, along with ten ethnographic observations at events like Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) meetings, cultural festivals, and at faculty and leadership meetings at the sites. Numerous documents pertaining to the schools’ student population, school-family policies, and relationships with local churches and civic agencies were also collected. Data analysis was done via an iterative process that focused on finding common themes and entertaining alternative conclusions. Multiple data sources were triangulated, and all interviews were fully transcribed and coded in English, including the three interviews that were conducted in Spanish by a research assistant who later translated them. We reexamined the data from the two studies to explore three guiding questions: (1) How do Latino/a immigrant youth encounter and navigate educational borderlands? (2) How do public educators facilitate or impede youth’s border 2 Although the majority of US Latinos/as are Catholic, an unprecedented number are converting from Catholicism with figures estimating that one out of every seven Latino/as left the Catholic Church in the last 25 years (Levitt, 2002); thus, the California study is indicative of the growing religious diversity of Latinas/os. 123 10 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 crossing efforts?, and, (3) How can educators combat educational inequity given the experiences of immigrant youth and the perceptions of educators serving them in two critical locales? Several researchers have stressed the importance of better understanding educational issues affecting Latinas/os not only in traditional gateway states like California—the most populous US state for immigrants—but also in states that have the fastest growing Latino/a immigrant populations, such as those in the US South (Anrig and Wang 2006; McClain 2006; Portes and Rumbaut 2005; Villenas 2002). Latino/a immigrants new to California arrive to find long established, vibrant Latino/a communities that are economically and culturally diverse and have some political representation in local and state politics. In emerging gateway states like North Carolina, Latino/a immigrants are more apt to be undocumented, experience poverty, and thus be more politically disenfranchised (McClain 2006). Nevertheless, Latinas/os in both types of locales are marginalized people of color too often hindered by educational inequity and divisive politics. Latino/a Immigrant Youth Negotiating Borderlands in California California is the largest and most culturally diverse state in the US and home to immigrants from around the globe. Modern California also contains a massive amount of territory seized from Mexico in the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), making it a long contested borderland (Griswold del Castillo 1992). Ironically, Latino/a immigrants—many of whose ancestors are indigenous to California’s land—are arguably the most unwelcomed immigrant group in the state. California’s anti-immigrant stance continues today as evidenced by a slew of exclusionary laws passed in the last two decades including: Proposition 63 (1986) which made English the state’s official language; Proposition 1873 (1994) which attempted to eliminate health and educational services for undocumented immigrants; Proposition 209 (1996), which eliminated affirmative action; and Proposition 227 (1998), which dismantled bilingual education (American Institutes and WestEd 2006). These policies continue to increase the prestige of English and the stigma of immigrant languages, Spanish in particular. La Iglesia is a key site in the California study to which the immigrant youth participants were linked. The church is in a Southern California community that experienced a shift from a predominantly Mexican area to one that includes Central Americans. During the 1980’s large numbers of Salvadorans and Guatemalans immigrated to Southern California due to war and violence in their countries (Hamilton and Chinchilla 2001). Such demographic changes resulted in the movement of long established racial/ethnic groups from some areas of Southern California. In California, the labels of ‘‘Latino’’ and ‘‘Hispanic’’ have long been identified with Mexicans/Mexican–Americans. Thus, Central Americans were subsumed by the Mexican–American population. Second generation Central American children began to adopt the labels ‘‘Latino’’ or ‘‘Hispanic’’ rather than identify with their 3 Proposition 187 was deemed unconstitutional by the courts. 123 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 11 nationalities and thus struggled to retain their Central American identities (Hamilton and Chinchilla 2001). Bringing a distinct variety of Spanish into a majority Mexican/Mexican– American space, the growing Central American population in Southern California challenges traditional linguistic borders of English and Spanish. The more powerful variety of Spanish in many communities is the Mexican Spanish. Second-generation Adalia who is Guatemalan-American provided an example of these daily linguistic, border crossing negotiations in her home community, which then influenced her peer interactions in school: Cuando estás en un lugar si alguien está dic- todos son Mexicanos y tú eres la única de otro paı́s, se te pega lo Mexicano. Como esto, la straw, ‘popote,’ pero yo no le digo popote, yo le digo ‘pajilla.’ (When you are in a place if someone is say—all are Mexican and you are the only one from another country, the Mexican style rubs off on you. Like this, the straw, ‘‘popote’’ [Mexican], but I don’t call it ‘‘popote,’’ I call it ‘pajilla’ [Central America].) Although Adalia admitted speaking in Mexican ways, she expressed a desire to retain her Central American vocabulary even though it immediately marked her as an outsider to the majority Mexican population. Her insistence on using the Guatemalan lexicon reflected her affiliation with her parents’ home country. She stated: ‘‘I love my culture, Guatemalan culture… Good food, family life, environment, really close… You have to live it to experience what I’ve experienced. You know, you go to Guatemala and you don’t have to explain yourself about anything cause they know. You speak a certain way and they know.’’ Like the young Mexicanas in Godinez’ study of cultural knowledge (2006) whose narratives expressed great pride in being Mexican and reflected the formation of ‘‘Mexicanness’’, Adalia demonstrates her love for her country and her Guatemalan identity. For her, Guatemala is a place where she has had significant experiences that cannot be lived in the US. These experiences constitute her home and community pedagogies. Her embracing and valuing of her Guatemalan experiences and language is a manifestation of her agency that counters negative discourses of Latin America and its peoples. Moreover, Adalia explained that in Guatemala (which she visits with her family) she does not feel ‘‘different’’ unlike in the US where difference is defined in comparison to a white middle-class norm (Bailey 2002), or even the Mexican norms evident in her immediate community. Other Central American youth in the study also reported working to maintain their Central American ways, particularly at school where their cultural backgrounds were not validated or connected to the curriculum. While the Central American youth embraced linguistic practices that positioned them as a subgroup within the Latino/a community, they were also aware that they were a part of the larger Latino/a community and affected by the geopolitical issues such as immigration that affect the larger group. All of the youth were largely pro-immigration. For example, Adalia believed that the US should give visas to immigrants who have been in the country longer than five years and that everyone, even those who were undocumented, could claim the US as ‘‘our country.’’ But she also supported the building of borders between the US 123 12 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 and Mexico. Another young man stated that people should wait to obtain visas in their home countries rather than coming to the US without legal authorization. Thus, youth responses both reflected and disrupted larger societal immigration discourses. This demonstrates youth’s struggle to negotiate larger anti-immigrant dominant discourses and their own (and their families’) conceptualizations of citizenship. Fifteen-year-old tenth grader Junior’s response to the question of immigration demonstrated both a challenge to anti-immigrant discourses and a distancing from ‘‘immigrant identities.’’ He stated: The good thing is like they’re (the government) trying to pass, like, come to an agreement like to get people their legal residency, so that’s a good thing cause like I have a lot of family members that don’t have their papers or anything, and what they (government) want to do before, like, make immigrants illegal like criminals, that’s not good. Because I think that, like, immigrants they come to work hard and to make—give their families a better life…they come to pick our fields, they work at jobs like many people don’t want to work at…I think the president Vincente Fox said that immigrants do, like, jobs that not even Black people will do… I don’t see any African Americans picking fields or working as-as those difficult jobs that immigrants do. Junior viewed immigrants positively as working hard in jobs no others will do. He alludes to immigrant discourses from Mexico that emphasize immigrant contributions to the US, countering the US view of immigrants as taking away resources and jobs from citizens. In this way, he demonstrates his knowledge of Mexican politics and aligns himself with former Mexican president Vicente Fox who in 2005 came under attack for commenting that Mexican immigrants take jobs that not even ‘‘Blacks want to do.’’ Even though policymakers, researchers, and educators may consider him an immigrant, second-generation Junior considers ‘‘immigrants’’ to be other people, even close family members and those ‘‘without papers,’’ but not himself. Like other second-generation immigrant students in the study, he struggled to make sense of his immigrant identity and status amid larger immigration debates. The students overall struggled with the various pushes and pulls they experienced on a daily basis as they navigated the different educational (and identity) borderlands. School often limited the kinds of agentive activities in which students could participate. For example, some of the youth wanted to engage in the 2006 student walk-outs and rallies for immigration rights which took place nationwide including in major California cities. One boy participated in one of the rallies held in downtown Los Angeles. However, youth’s participation in these protests were sometimes curbed by the school rules. When asked about his participation in the walkouts, Junior stated: I was about to, but they (school officials) didn’t let us out…right before homeroom they let people out but then I try to go, they told us go back to class. We didn’t go back we just went back to school, like, they didn’t let us out or else I would have gone (to the protests). 123 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 13 During the walkouts, schools sought to control the students—thereby regulating their ‘‘brown bodies’’—by keeping them in the classroom. Junior like the other youth strove to follow their school’s regulations because they wanted to be ‘‘good’’ students who met the expectations of the adult authorities and thus followed rules imposed by institutions that attempted to constrain their agency. Such incidences show how the geopolitical, institutional, and home community borderlands both clash and merge for youth. For the youth, church was also a significant community learning space that validated their Spanish language. At church the students were considered valuable contributors to God and society. In school, however, data indicated the Pentecostal immigrant youth were pressured to assimilate and give up their home and church identities. Through their expectations, schools socialize to ‘‘normative’’ notions of morality. High achieving youth, in particular, learn that what is good and moral is to compete and to devote oneself to academic achievement. College-bound Adalia, for example, attended a magnet high school. In describing what her school and church value, she stated: Church, you have to be humilde (humble). In school, you have to be competitive. In church, you have to be calm. In school, you have to be aggressive…They (school) want us to be rich people… In the way that they want us to have more education, less, how do you say this, um, menos humildad (less humility)…They want you to be more educated…Too much education could also be bad, you know?… In the way that, I mean, hey you’re talking to your grandma and you have a lot of education now. Your grandma doesn’t know a lot of stuff. Like in my case, my grandma doesn’t even know how to write good, you know?… you intimidate your own mother, you intimidate your own family.4 Adalia’s quote contrasts the cultural values of humility and modesty that the church espouses with the competiveness and aggression she finds at school. She realizes however, that meeting school expectations and achieving educational success is not neutral but has the cost of distancing oneself from one’s family. Adalia’s quote here speaks to the ‘‘borderlands’’ that she inhabits; specifically, the ‘‘geographical, emotional, and psychological space occupied by mestizas’’ that ‘‘serves as a metaphor for the condition of living, between spaces, cultures, and languages’’ (Delgado Bernal 2006, p. 123). Adalia must balance between and within these different spaces. She must balance ‘‘competitiveness’’ and ‘‘humildad,’’ education and educación, school and familia. Her experiences conjure the participants in Godinez’ study (2006): ‘‘Through this experience, young Mexicanas develop as active agents of change, seeing through a two-worldness or double consciousness to transform structural and daily constraints of oppression, racism, and poverty into the birth and growth of a tactical politics of difference’’ (p. 32). This is essential work for youth border crossers. Another example of schooling’s assimilationist thrust was revealed by a comment made by a teacher at fourteen-year-old, ninth grader Laura’s school as 4 This data excerpt was originally published in Ek (2009). 123 14 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 recorded in a fieldnote: ‘‘The teacher said, ‘She’s doing really well, seems to have assimilated well’ and contrasts Laura with the other Latina girls (the cluster of Spanish-speaking girls).’’ This teacher correlated doing well in school with assimilation, and by comparing Laura to the other Latinas in the class who spoke Spanish she highlighted English as the tool for assimilation and achievement. She failed to recognize the value of Laura’s home language and culture. Scholars have found that discrimination of Latinos/as is conducted by proxy in that it is now less acceptable to attack people because of their race/ethnicity, but it is acceptable to attack their language (Gutiérrez et al. 2002). In addition, Laura was not doing well academically partly because of the insufficient and under resourced services for English Language Learners (ELLs). The bilingual coordinator reported that the school mismanaged bilingual education funds and did not know how to meet the needs of English Language Learners. The coordinator checked Laura’s file and saw that Laura had been misplaced in the sheltered English classes of the ESL (English as a Second Language) program. Laura’s status had changed to Redesignated Fluent English Proficient (RFEP) so she should have been in regular English classes. Laura’s situation is not uncommon as schools routinely misclassify students and place them in the wrong programs. The different bilingual programs for immigrant students therefore create borders that students must learn how to navigate too, and the programs construct and impose different identities for the students. Overall, the immigrant youth in the California study were largely silent and invisible in school spaces. Students like Junior said they sensed their invisibility and the low expectations that both teachers and counselors set for them. According to Junior, uncaring counselors and teachers thought that the students at his school are ‘‘going nowhere,’’ reflecting the institution’s perceptions of ELLs as underachievers who are not worthy of much time or energy investment. Immigration and Demographic Change in a North Carolina Borderland While states like California often come to mind when thinking about the politics of US immigration given physical border location, the US South has become a borderland with important geopolitical contexts that affect immigrant youth’s education as well (McClain 2006; Villenas 2002). Much of the research and discourse about racial inequity in the US South focuses specifically on the relationships between African American and white populations since these two groups have historically composed the vast majority of the South’s population. The South, however, like the rest of the US is experiencing rapid cultural shifts. In North Carolina, specifically, immigration rates have more than doubled since 1990 (Johnson 2002; Kitchen 2002). Some school district’s enrollment of English language learners has increased six-fold in the past decade, and some districts enroll students who speak over 100 different languages or dialects (CNNC 2007). Nevertheless, compared to California, North Carolina remains a state where educators (mainly white and African American) do not have long-term experience serving a variety of ethnic, cultural, and linguistic groups. This is so at Apple and 123 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 15 Violet Elementary Schools where Latino/a students were especially regarded by some educators, staff, and non-immigrant parents as ‘‘new,’’ and most contentiously, as part of an ‘‘invasion’’ that threatens the way of life and distribution of educational resources. In fact, data from the educators serving immigrant youth (which also included small populations of East Asian, African, and Muslim students) and parents further reveal how the ideologies, interactions, and practices of adults help make educational borderlands challenging social spaces. Data from the California study offered the perspectives of youth thrust within border spaces who are forced to make hard decisions as they seek agency and risk cultural loss and mainstream exclusion. The North Carolina study, on the other hand, reveals the perspectives of educators firmly grounded in the privileged spaces to which Latino/a immigrant youth seek access. We believe considering the insight from both students and educators is essential to developing ways to combat inequity. In North Carolina’s Apple and Violet Elementary Schools immigrant youth interacted with many adults striving to be equity-oriented and ‘‘welcoming’’ to them, including teachers who saw benefits to diversity and explained that: ‘‘it (diversity) affords us the opportunity to really look at other cultures and not just look at them through books and magazines and textbooks…’’ (Violet teacher); or, who remarked with pride that, ‘‘my class is like the United Nations’’ (Apple teacher). Others specifically characterized Latino/a immigrant parents as ‘‘caring’’ ‘‘hard working,’’ and as striving to give their children ‘‘what they didn’t have’’ in their home countries. Nevertheless, teachers at both schools also acknowledged intolerance and cultural tensions. While a Violet teacher (white male) recognized the school’s diversity as part of its ‘‘strengths,’’ he added: the weaknesses that show [are] coming from (students’) home…the dislike for other cultures…things like not liking Hispanics or not liking African Americans or not liking Chinese. That comes out. Obviously it comes out in the classroom. [We] try to nip that right in the bud but that I see as a weakness…with such a diverse community here there’s always that chance of that wire getting tripped. His comments speak to the tentative nature of Violet’s learning and social climate, which is affected by various students’ family background and home communities. Moreover, the teacher’s use of the tripped wire metaphor, which we invoked in our introductory discussion, signals what a tenuous space schools can be even when tensions around cultural diversity lie under the surface or are barely held at bay. For many teachers at Violet, ‘‘nipping’’ contentiousness related to diversity and the influx of Latino/a immigrant youth meant conveying messages of tolerance to students, and affirming that all children are the same. Indeed the school’s principal shared, ‘‘We teach the same values—we preach the same things,’’5 denoting a rudimentary and often colorblind approach to engaging diversity. This approach keeps privileged (often white) educators in a comfortable place of denial while offering students of color a false sense of security and/or a stifling and increasingly 5 This data excerpt was originally published in Cooper (2009), p. 705. 123 16 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 hostile educational environment where they are invalidated (Leonardo and Porter 2010). The landmines still lay under students’ feet and boundaries still confine them because of their cultural differences. Across the board, notions of difference in the North Carolina schools were especially linked to language. Teachers and administrators repeatedly explained what they perceived as the challenge of educating Latino/a students and engaging their families due to ‘‘language barriers’’ (Cooper 2009; Cooper et al. 2010). The principal of Apple Elementary School explained that while most of its newly arrived immigrant students were Latino/a Spanish-speakers, many others spoke indigenous languages that school staff members could not interpret. She also pointed to the emotional trauma experienced by some students given their immigration process and/or separation from family and noted that addressing the distinct issues of immigrant youth was ‘‘totally new for ground us.’’ Moreover, several teachers at both schools referred to Latino/a immigrant families struggling with poverty, domestic violence, and/or alcoholism, which most associated with the families’ isolation, stress, or economic hard times. An Apple ESL teacher said he sympathized with Latino/a immigrants and their experience ‘‘coming to a new land’’ where their ‘‘culture implodes.’’ These teachers’ comments acknowledge how border crossing can be culturally threatening and violent given the powerful assimilating forces that immigrants face upon entering the US and its public schools. The ESL teacher referred to educators at Apple who were intolerant because of their cultural bias; yet, he also linked teacher bias to the testing and accountability pressures they face with the increase of ELL students. He stated: ‘‘ESL requirements developed on the fly in North Carolina…You’re (schools) punished for having ELL kids,’’ and, ‘‘one kid could put AYP (Academic Yearly Progress) in the toilet,’’ which he called ‘‘ridiculous.’’ The teacher added these dynamics can make teachers and principals ‘‘resentful.’’ Altogether, data paint a picture in which English language learning students are not only disadvantaged in a cultural war over whose knowledge, language, culture, and identities are valued and nurtured within schools, but it also typecasts ELL students as academic enemies in a high stakes system where test scores can yield professional accolades and even job security for educators. Educating diverse learners—whose cultures, knowledge, and experiences are inadequately incorporated into curriculum and poorly assessed on tests (Nieto and Bode 2004)—is therefore dreaded by some educators and even institutionally penalized. This is particularly so when those learners are non-English speaking and/ or racial-ethnic ‘‘others.’’ Similarly, at Violet Elementary School, several teachers and staff spoke of their colleagues associating immigrant students’ limited English skills with low intelligence. A Latino/a teacher assistant and parent asserted: … what I notice is that most of the teachers think that they (Latino/a immigrants) are not bright or smart or something like that and it’s not (that) they are not smart—of course they are smart! It’s that they don’t know the language—that is it, that’s what it is. 123 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 17 Overall, though discussions of language differences indicated some legitimate challenges to accommodating immigrant youth given the limited infrastructure and personnel support of some North Carolina school districts, educators also socially constructed linguistic borders. These borders eased educators’ ability to distance themselves from immigrant students, and sometimes resulted in educators pathologizing students as deficient and unworthy of time and effort, as we also saw in the California study (Cooper et al. 2009; Cooper 2009). Wherever educators fell on the ideological spectrum, it became clear at both Apple and Violet Elementary Schools that they, staff members, and the parents of non-immigrant children helped shape the atmosphere and the school’s institutional identities—identities that were perceived differently depending on how a person experienced the school. Violet’s principal and several teachers contended that the school was a place where multiculturalism was ‘‘celebrated,’’ yet others spoke of conflict and segregation. At Apple most of the educators said they worked at school by choice because of their desire to serve a diverse population; still, they also referred to the school’s undesirable reputation given its ethnic diversity, the lowincome of most of its students’ families, and its growing immigrant population. The school’s secretary and PTO president, a white female, explained the school’s low status in the surrounding community among other white parents. She said: … they only see the cultural part of it (school diversity) instead of the education part. And, I just wish there was a better way to get them to understand that it’s not dirty to work or go to school here—you’re out in public and you get people like, ‘‘Ewww, you work there?’’ And that is discouraging—as a parent and as staff member. Her observation indicates how various geopolitical, institutional, and home community borderlands intersect and at times stigmatize immigrant youth and other school community members. The perception of ‘‘dirty’’ work directly reflects the xenophobic discourses linked to immigration debates in North Carolina, California and elsewhere (Cruz 2006; Murrillo 2002; Villenas 2002). This discourse also correlates with the ‘‘brown bodies’’ educators and staff are charged with serving as being thought of as dirty in a physical, moral, and/or intellectual sense (Cruz 2006; Leonardo 2000; Tejeda 2000). The biased ideologies that the PTA president and other conscientious educators at both schools wished to resist, represents the white supremacist dynamics that can shape the borderlands that Latino/a immigrants and other marginalized youth strive to cross (Tejeda 2000). Altogether, data from Apple and Violet point to the necessity of educators and other adult community members being willing to cross social, cultural, and intellectual borders of their own. As a Violet ESL teacher emphasized, ‘‘…if we could do it (positively interact with diverse people) as adults then we’ll pass that on to our children and our children will grow up in a situation where my daughter won’t just be talking to all English speaking folks.’’ She added that such interaction could ‘‘transfer into their whole lives—how they’ll interact in neighborhoods… everything.’’ This parent-teacher recognized how educational borderlands converge to encompass students’ worlds and that maintaining rigid barriers or divisions will 123 18 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 restrain them for life. She further infers the ethical duty of educators and other adults to erase borders and foster inclusion. Translating Cultures and Recasting Border Crossing Pedagogies The construction and maintenance of rigid borders intended to socially and politically exclude people based on cultural difference continue to exacerbate hateful politics of difference at every level of society while acutely disenfranchising immigrant youth. In the US, anti-immigrant policies, discourses and practices attempt to regulate and control Latinas/os, whether through hostile and armed governmental ‘‘border patrol’’ practices or through educational laws geared towards blocking undocumented children from enrolling in public schools. Overall, legislation and social policies based on geopolitical borders are used to justify various forms of violence against Latino/a immigrants within communities and public institutions. Ironically, many of the Latino/a immigrants in our studies came to the United States to escape the violence in their home countries—primarily the violence of war and of poverty—only to search for educational opportunities and social mobility in border spaces where their cultures, identities, and human value are routinely assaulted. Border crossing theories provide a thoughtful, critical framework to help understand the risks, complexities, and ‘‘transformative possibilities’’ that youth engage as they try to grow, learn and enact agency in contested borderlands that offer access to knowledge and power (Leonardo and Porter 2010, p. 152). Our California and North Carolina studies further illustrate how such politics of identity and difference shape these liminal spaces that youth occupy. Data from the California study show that many youth are courageous border crossers who instinctively try to negotiate their multiple identities and allegiances to their families, communities, peers, the educators for which they wish to demonstrate their intelligence and worth, and to themselves. Many youth traverse borderlands while claiming their right to learn, achieve, and even exist in public, yet privileged, spaces where they are pejoratively deemed as foreign and assumed to have undocumented citizenship status. The North Carolina study, however, indicates the many relational borders that educators and other adult members of school communities erect due to their deficit-based notions of difference, thereby potentially hindering immigrant students’ ability to thrive in schools. In all, the theories and data offered in this article call upon us as educators, youth advocates, and researchers to reconsider whose culture matters; who is deemed worthy of acceptance, inclusion, and educational opportunity; and, whose humanity gets to be affirmed in school communities. Enacting a commitment to true inclusion and educational equity requires educators to embark on the cultural work of border crossing in a distinct way by which they are mindful that they possess power, choices, and privilege that youth lack. Educators also have the ability to, even unwittingly, reify exclusive borders and reproduce social inequality out of fear of change and disruption. This is evident in traditional gateway states like California or emerging gateway states like North Carolina (Anrig and Wang 2006; McClain 123 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 19 2006). For educators, the feared disruption relates to the explosive tensions that become evident when people are honest about their biases; and/or, it can mean fearing the status quo shifting as marginalized youth excel. Leonardo and Porter (2010), however, stress the importance of facing conflict related to racial-ethnic politics head on to foster collective learning and to increase educators’ ability to implement systemic reform. Similar to their analysis of anti-racist teaching, border crossing for educational transformation involves embracing pedagogies of disruption that are: … inherently risky, uncomfortable, and fundamentally unsafe (Lynn 1999), particularly for whites. This does not equate with creating a hostile situation but to acknowledge that pedagogies that tackle racial power will be most uncomfortable for those who benefit from that power. (pp. 139–140) Leonardo and Porter further suggest that when educators tackle racist discourses and practices linked to the type of cultural and geopolitical contexts we have described, they lift the ‘‘veil of color-blindness’’ (p. 150) and engage in a risk taking that, ‘‘… leads to more transformative learning opportunities’’ (p. 153). These actions in turn promote empathy, and understanding while humanizing students. Similarly, we believe empathy can be a powerful resource, especially since we all occupy borderlands: as such, border crossing is a human imperative. However, the degree to which educators are inclined to acknowledge their status as border crossers and undertake the process with the intentionality of combating inequity, collaborating, and serving others varies. Border crossing for educators requires willfully accepting that all humans are inextricably linked irrespective of any cultural or geopolitical impediments that we have ideologically, socially, and politically constructed. The North Carolina study signals that educators’ failure to personally and systematically account for these discontinuities impact how cultures are translated, how students are treated, and how groups are perceived. The term translational refers to the process of interpretation across linguistic, ideological, and cultural barriers (Bhabha 1994). For instance, within translation there are idiosyncracies and contextual dynamics that must be considered to extrapolate an accurate interpretation or translation of a particular phenomenon or group. Within the border or liminal spaces between various languages are unique cultural and linguistic variables that are often endemic to the communities that utilize the languages (Anzaldúa 2007; Bhabha 1994; González 2001; Lopez et al. 2006; Villaverde 2008; Zentella 2005). Two communities that use the same language, such as the Central American and Mexican immigrant youth in California, are not immune from the need to consider how the translational process impacts their language and interpretation—their choices, usage, and translations may be very different even as they use similar grammar. At the literal level, the need for translating multiple languages and cultures is critical to educators being able to provide quality instruction, culturally responsive curriculum, and engage diverse families in ways that move us beyond the ‘‘language barriers’’ that both the California and North Carolina studies address (Cooper 2009; Ek 2008). More broadly and importantly, however, the translational dynamics of culture refer to the various contextual factors that influence how culture is experienced, understood, 123 20 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 and interpreted across and within groups. Researchers, scholars, and practitioners who seek to more authentically experience, understand, and interpret other cultures must be sensitive to the difference that exists within and across the languages and discourses of peoples. The nuances of translation cannot be oversimplified or ignored due to similarities in culture, ideology, and identity. For educators, this means rejecting the temptation to essentialize and stereotype various social and cultural groups of students, which only leads to reinforcing social binaries and perpetuating exclusionary politics (Cline et al. 2005; Cooper 2009; de la Luz Reyes & Garza 2005; Giroux 2005; Lopez et al. 2006; Shields 2000). Conclusion Our discussion has highlighted educational border crossing contexts and the risks and inequities associated with them that immigrant youth face in varied communities. Findings from our California and North Carolina studies indicate the importance of educators in all locales being more inclusive and countering racialized politics of difference that attack diverse cultures and identities. Like identities, borders are social constructs that may appear to be fixed even as they fluctuate based on social influences and political imperatives (Giroux 2005; Omi and Winant 1993; West 1999). Traversing or dismantling these constructed borders requires effort on our part as humans and as stakeholders working within education. Educators must be willing to challenge the hierarchies that privilege particular cultures while simultaneously reevaluating their own motives and ideologies as they relate to students of color, immigrants, and immigration. In becoming border crossers themselves, educators should also work towards the goal of hybridity. ‘‘Hybridity,’’ which in this context refers to one’s capacity to embrace or appreciate various identities in order to navigate politics and pedagogies of difference, allows one to tease out the complexity of borders and boundaries and then move beyond the binaries embedded in essentialist perspectives (Bhabha 1994; Lopez et al. 2006; Said 1994; Spivak 1999). This means adopting a critical epistemological stance that compels one to exude transformative leadership by: valuing more diverse sources of knowledge; better understanding, critiquing, and resisting educational inequity; and, building alliances (Cooper 2009; Cooper et al. 2010). Educators bear the professional and ethical responsibility of creating and facilitating ‘‘dialogic encounters’’ that allow them to dialogue with, learn from, and lead with others (Giroux 2005; Leonardo and Porter 2010; Riehl 2000). It is essential that they be supported at the district and school level via professional development opportunities and by the curriculum and internship opportunities offered by teacher education and educational faculties. This means better integrating critical multicultural education in pre-K to postsecondary settings so educators can better understand youth’s identities and realities (Cooper et al. 2009). Also, educators must visit their students’ home and community contexts and learn about the funds of knowledge found in these spaces as well as the practices in which youth engage (Gonzalez et al. 2005). In so doing, educators can then leverage students’ 123 Urban Rev (2014) 46:1–24 21 home and community ways of knowing in the classroom and foster partnerships that respect and incorporate the pedagogical strategies employed in students’ home and communities. 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